There’s a reason David Brock, founder of the liberal group Media Matters for America, chooses to house an unregistered professional solicitor in his office to raise money for his conglomerate of super PACs and nonprofits.

Professional solicitors are required to disclose their active solicitation contracts. Brock wants his unregistered solicitor, the Bonner Group, to keep its client list hidden for a very specific reason.

Related Stories

Brock has seven nonprofits, three super PACs, one 527 committee, one LLC, one joint fundraising committee and one unregistered solicitor crammed into his office in Washington.

Uncovered records expose a constant flow of money between these organizations.

The Bonner Group, his professional solicitor, works off a commission. Every time money gets passed around, Bonner receives a 12.5 percent cut.

Advertisement - story continues below

Follow the money

Nonprofits are required to disclose to whom they give cash grants.

But they aren’t required to disclose who gives them cash grants.

This weak system of one-way verification is being abused by Brock. He’s been cycling money between his organizations for years, and the Bonner Group’s 12.5 percent commission gets triggered after every pass.

Brock paid the Bonner Group a $124,250 commission to solicit a cash grant … from himself!

It doesn’t stop there

After the Franklin Education Forum retained $869,750, it sent a $816,224 cash grant to Brock’s Franklin Forum.

Note: The Franklin Education Forum is a 501(c)3, and The Franklin Forum is a 501(c)4. They are not the same company.

The Franklin Forum 501(c)4 paid Bonner a commission in 2013, so it’s safe to assume the fundraiser received a $102,028 commission in 2014. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell for sure. It still hasn’t filed its taxes for 2014!

Let’s recap

Say, for example, you donate $1,062,857 to Media Matters for America. This is how David Brock would have used your charitable donation in 2014:

In English: Contractually, Brock has the option to exclude certain contributions from triggering the commission. In spite of this option, he intentionally chooses to trigger the 12.5 percent commission for money grants between his organizations.

Note: Yes, we are making the assumption that all of Brock’s organizations have the same solicitation agreement with the Bonner Group. Given that his organizations share the same address, board members and telephone number, we feel it’s safe to assume they also share the same solicitation agreement.

This barely scratches the surface

Utilizing public-facing tax returns, along with records submitted to the Federal Election Commission, we mapped out all the significant money transfers from 2014 that took place in Brock’s office:

Summary

This is all from just one year! No further commentary required.

We understand this may be hard to believe. We first came across this in July, and are still having a hard time wrapping our heads around it.

All of the data referenced in this article originated from publicly accessible sources. Check for yourself — we provided links to the source material in our article exposing the organizations operating in Brock’s office. These data have been sitting out in the open, gathering dust for years.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

We’ve spent months trying to find some sort of loophole to justify this activity. But there aren’t any loopholes. David Brock has something to hide. Just last month, The Daily Caller reported the following:

“Brock’s former long-time live-in boyfriend William Grey (whom Brock has thanked in several of his books) threatened to go to the IRS with damaging information about how Brock was running his Media Matters empire. What did Brock do? He paid Grey $850,000 to keep quiet. Brock reportedly had to sell his home in Rehoboth, Delaware, to come up with the money. This certainly seems to indicate that Brock was terrified about what the authorities would uncover.”

“‘Next step is I contact all your donors and the IRS,’ Grey wrote in an email dated May 19, 2010. ‘This is going to stink for you if you do not resolve this now.'”

We believe that the information presented in this article is what has Brock so terrified. We feel confident in saying, with close to absolute certainty, that David Brock is laundering money through his Media Matters conglomerate.